Jolla unveils The Other Half smart covers, along with SDK for 3D printing

Back in 2010, Nokia had around 38 percent of global smartphone market share. Now the figure has plummeted to less than 4 percent. Of course, the demise already started when the Finnish company couldn’t bring out their big guns against the likes of Apple and Samsung in 2011, and even had to scrap off their own operating system development. But as periods of commercial despair has often shown, a new phoenix had emerged from the ashes of the development team. Boasting of around a 100 employees (most of them from Nokia), they call themselves the Jolla (Finnish for dinghy). And what’s more, the company had successfully launched their new smartphone, new Linux-based Sailfish OS, and are now unveiling their phone cover customization system known as The Other Half.

This phone cover customization system is much more than just physically changing the cover of the device. Available in ‘Keira Black’ and ‘Aloe’ models, the designs are rather envisioned as ‘smart covers’. This means – your Jolla phone detects The Other Half cover via NFC, and then automatically changes its theme and ringtone in accordance with the aesthetics of the cover.

Now there is no question about the innovative nature of the technology, but it may seem a bit indulgent on the part of the company. Fortunately, Jolla quashes any such misgivings with their additional release of the SDK for The Other Half (that includes the modelling data for 3D printing the smart covers).

So at the end of the day, the implication remains – DIYer can go wild with their imagination with such an accessible technological scope. This certainly alludes to Jolla’s long term commitment to mobile based open sourced platforms.

A proud native of the beautiful steel township of Durgapur, West Bengal, Dattatreya’s fascination lies within a range of diverse matters. With a bachelor’s degree in architecture, he is quite fond of his hardcore strategy gamer as well as amateur historian tag. Of course, with over two years of blogging experience under his belt, he also likes to write about the latest updates on gizmo oriented products and home based technology.